John Hackleman

Martial arts background and career

Hackleman was born in New York City but moved to Honolulu, Hawaii at the age of four. He began studying Judo when he was about nine years old. By the time he entered high school, Hackleman was a Golden Gloves boxer and a competitive kickboxer. He had some Shotokan Karate training, but by the age of 10 studied Judo and KaJuKenBo under Walter Godin, with whom he would continue to train until Godin’s death in 2002. Kajukenbo is a mixture of Kempo Karate, Tang Soo Do, Judo, Jujitsu, Chinese Kenpo, and Chinese boxing (Kung Fu), which was developed in Hawaii between 1947 to 1949 and which was developed specifically as a street fighting art.

In 1979, Hackleman enlisted in the Army in response to the Iran hostage crisis. He spent three years as a member of the Army boxing team, during which time he won the state and regional Golden Gloves titles. After leaving the Army, Hackleman worked as a professional boxer under the management of Don King Promotions. Although, there is some speculation that Hackleman's professional boxing record consists of 17 wins, 3 losses, with 15 knockouts, this record cannot be verified. Hackleman's record maintained by BoxRec is 8 wins, 4 losses, with 7 knockouts and 1 draw. Two of his losses were by knockout.

In 1985, Hackleman moved to California and renamed his martial arts style to Hawaiian Kempo. The Pit is one of the Hawaiian Kempo schools that use the Ke-m-po spelling, instead of the more commonly used Ke-n-po. Hackleman describes his style as more hardcore than other Hawaiian Kenpo schools. He gave school the style name "KuZen," a word derived from mix "Ku," the Hawaiian god of war, and "Zen," for Zen Buddhism. This name was intended to attract children and families to his school.

Training a champion

Before UFC 47 both Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz had trained at the Pit. This would be a turning point in Liddell's career as he was coming off losses to both Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Randy "the Natural" Couture in two of his prior three fights. Before the fight Chuck had been a longtime contender who had never been given a shot at Ortiz and the title. Ortiz’ loss of the title to Couture made the matchup a no-brainer for both fighters. Chuck knocked Ortiz out in the second round and went undefeated for a subsequent seven fights before losing the title in a rematch to Quinton Jackson. During this time he avenged losses to Randy Couture (twice) and Jeremy Horn. He defeated members of two distinguished training camps in the Lion’s Dens own Vernon "Tiger" White, and the Gracie Barra Combat Team’s Renato "Babalu" Sobral.

The change in Chuck Liddell’s career was part of a philosophy of John Hackleman’s to get back to the basics of what had built his career. Prior to his loss to Couture, Hackleman felt that Chuck had had too much training time taken away due to the need for publicity tours and other such scheduled events on the behalf of the UFC. He had felt that it was time to get back to the type of training that The Pit was known for.

Since then Liddell has opened his own school along with Scott Adams in San Luis Obispo, California which focuses on kickboxing. Fighters from the Pit train at both schools but Liddell and other fighters from both schools fight as members of the Pit fight team.

Current and upcoming events

Since losing the UFC light-heavyweight title to Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Liddell suffered a second consecutive loss to "The Dean of Mean" Keith Jardine at UFC 76 via a split decision after three rounds. Despite rebounding three months later at UFC 79 with a win by unanimous decision against former PRIDE FC middleweight champ Wanderlei "The Axe-Murderer" Silva. Liddell's next fight, which was against future UFC Light Heavyweight Champion "Sugar" Rashad Evans at UFC 88, ended in a brutal second round knockout loss. His next fight ended in a first round knockout loss to the former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, former Pride Middleweight Grand Prix winner and team Universidade da luta standout Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. In his most recent fight on the comeback trail, Liddell lost to Rich "Ace" Franklin via a first round knockout at UFC 115. Liddell announced his retirement at the UFC 125 pre-fight press conference and now works for the staff of UFC.

In 2007 of the Pit's younger fighters, Antonio Banuelos received notoriety when he was featured on the Tapout reality series. Although he lost his WEC 26 bantamweight matchup to Charlie Valencia via 1st-round knockout, the showcase provided one of the Pit's top young prospects invaluable experience and notoriety as the team looked to build their next superstar.